Stop press: Ben Howlett tells us he will not challenge a hard Brexit

Bath for Europe has slammed Bath MP Ben Howlett for being way behind the curve on the European Single Market.

Both before the referendum and since the referendum, Ben Howlett has been saying that he wants Britain to stay in the single market.

At a meeting on 24th February with members of Bath for Europe on Friday 24th February, he admitted that he was resigned to Britain leaving the single market. Furthermore, despite his pronouncements for the last 8 months, he even voted against the Article 50 amendment that proposed that Britain stays in the single market.

He told Bath for Europe that the reason for his newly found resignation is that he now understands that Britain cannot be in the single market without free movement of people across the EU.

William Hobhouse of Bath for Europe said: ‘for a whole year, politicians across the EU have been saying that the four freedoms of goods, people, services and capital cannot be cherry picked by Britain. It seems that Ben Howlett has just understood this for the first time, and has used it as a reason for his vote against the single market in parliament and the jettisoning of another of his red-lines for Brexit.’

‘We need an MP who is thinking ahead of the debate, not someone who is lagging a year behind everyone else, and whose assurances to his electorate are so easily discarded.’